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High School Memories - 62 years ago

I was just thinking what if my life would have turned out differently, if my friends and I would have kept in touch when we graduated from Poth High School in 1949. And still hung out together, socially. Who would I have married? What would have happened to me? When I graduated from Poth and left home, my life took a sharp turn, in another direction. A good direction. I loved Poth High School, but when I left I never looked back.

Yesterday my old friend Gay Johns Zunker who was one of my friends then, came over for a couple of hours and we talked about old high school memories. We shared some parts of our lives and events that happened in the last 60 years. We lost contact with each other shortly after we graduated. I remembered how we girls cried and talked about missing each other; we were already homesick for Poth and we hadn't even left yet!

As we looked at her scrap book with pictures and clippings from Poth High during 1947-49. I realized looking at the pictures, that I was not in many of the pictures. Just a couple of our whole class or the pep squad. Gay was one of my friends and I really liked her, but she ran around with the girls from town, and mostly were in the grade ahead of us. She had lots of pictures of Jeanie Orts, Mae Jeannette Ermler, Mary Jacqueline Voges, Harriet Ann Beyer, and Jennie Lee Weller - who was my friend too. But they all lived in Poth and were all good friends. I lived out in the country on a farm, in the western part of Wilson County. Gay talked about all the things they used to do, running around together. But she also had to work in town, holding down two jobs. One at Eckels Dry Good Store and one at the telephone company (which was upstairs above Schneider's Cafe).

Back then I was not aware of how much fun the girls who lived in town were having. I always looked up to Gay and thought she was a girl that was different....I told her yesterday that I later figured out that she always walked to the beat of a different drummer. She laughed and said maybe she did! She fell in love with Tommy Zunker who was a lot older and drove a truck for a living. That was when we were juniors. And the girls she ran around with all had boyfriends too. That is how I was different. I never had a boy friend.

One thing that getting old does for you, it brings wisdom. I tell the young people I know, "I hope I haven't lived for almost 80 years and am still as smart as I was when I was a teenage or when I was 30 or 40 and even 50. Because I would have lived all these years for nothing!" And going back and reliving my high school years over 60 years ago, I know I am wiser than I was then. Thank God!

But one thing I am thankful for is this: I was very naive and innocent and a country girl and I thought everybody liked me and I liked them and liked all my teachers and I loved high school. Maybe they did, I didn't think I was unpopular. We never thought like that then. Who was "popular" and who was not "unpopular". The word was not a part of my vocabulary. Like I have said before, I had a few close friends in high school, though we didn't see each other out of school much. If it hadn't been for football games, basket ball games, and volleyball games I would have gone back to the farm every day after school and worked in the fields and not had any friends. But Mother and Daddy let us participate in sports, pep squad, school plays and working on the annual and school newspaper.

Gay has had a hard life, as have I, but we both are different now, and we both thank God that we have come through the fire, and are still standing. What makes me sad, is all the years we missed when we went our separate ways, and I wished I had stayed friends with her and all the rest of the girls. But I realized that God had a plan for me, and I am no longer the little country girl who was left out of fun things. I just know I was not unhappy! I just was glad the girls in high school liked me and I was accepted.

When we graduated, I remember how I felt. Sad, because I knew I was gonna miss my friends, especially Crystal Warnken and Jennie Weller my two closest friends. Our class song was "Now is the Hour (when we must say good bye)" For years I cried when I heard that song.

But then yesterday as Gay and I talked, I realized when we graduated from high school that all of us girls lost touch. just like that! And then I learned that in the early 50's, most of us lived in San Antonio...and we never saw each other or talked on the phone! Then when Gay said she and Tommy (whom she married before we graduated), lived in an apartment on Denver Blvd. ...I was shocked...because Margaret and I lived in an apartment nearby on Hackberry St. and used to play tennis at the tennis courts on Denver Blvd...right near her apartment. Gay and I probably lived 2 or 3 blocks from each other. We never ran into each other.

I lost contact with the girls all through the years....Jennie and Crystal and I always sent Christmas cards every year. But soon that stopped too. I was not really a part of the "in" crowd, but I was so naive I didn't know it! Maybe God protected me from that rejection. I never felt rejected! Maybe that came from my Aunt Maurine. In my high school years she wrote me letters that encouraged me and always told me I was smart and I could do anything I wanted. She wrote me to just focus of the future, making good grades, and make plans to do something good with my life. Thank you Aunt Maurine! I have become wiser than I was in high school. And we all become wiser with age. You can count on it.

Your Opinions and Comments

Now if God had done us all a big favor and gave our 15 year old bodies a brain already loaded with 80 years of experience and wisdom, wouldn't that be as good as a banana split with whipped cream, cherries, walnuts, and chocolate ... More ›

Now if God had done us all a big favor and gave our 15 year old bodies a brain already loaded with 80 years of experience and wisdom, wouldn't that be as good as a banana split with whipped cream, cherries, walnuts, and chocolate chips on top?

4th generation, my mother always said that getting old has it's good things, like forgetting the things that made you unhappy in your youth or childhood, but she also said forgiveness had a big part in that too...I had to think ... More ›

4th generation, my mother always said that getting old has it's good things, like forgetting the things that made you unhappy in your youth or childhood, but she also said forgiveness had a big part in that too...I had to think real hard to remember the bad times...like the years it didn't rain...and we were so "poor"...but then for me, I always had my family and there was love.

Thank you...I always enjoy your stroll down memory lane. My memories of high school are pretty traumatic and I don't like to recall them. Ones perception over time often swings somewhere about 180 degrees.
But, keep the ... More ›

Thank you...I always enjoy your stroll down memory lane. My memories of high school are pretty traumatic and I don't like to recall them. Ones perception over time often swings somewhere about 180 degrees.
But, keep the word desert coming...